Chapter 8
EIGHT
RAWLING
If someone had ever told me that living in an infirmary was going to be part of my future, or that I would be happy about it, I’d have thought they lost their mind.
Infirmaries were for sick people, not dorm life.
Why would I want to be there? But living here with Phelan felt safe, warm, and like home.
It was the only part of the campus that felt this way, and all of that was because of my mate. In many ways it was like I had Phelan and no one else had. I needed to change that.
I thought back to my early days on campus, the things that mattered, the things that made a difference back then, and it was the people.
Of course it was. But for some reason, as I thought about those people, my mind kept wandering back to game night.
And that was how I decided that was what I wanted to do, host our own one here.
There was plenty of room, and it wouldn’t be in the open where I’d feel uncomfortable, knowing that it wasn’t just the people I cared about surrounding me and my ever-growing belly, which was becoming a source of ridicule to many.
It shouldn’t be. I was mated and having a baby, but still, people looked down on me.
We kind of did things in the wrong order, but all the expected boxes were ticked.
And even if they weren’t, so what? We weren’t living in the 1800s.
There were some people I really wanted to come.
My relationship with Jack was strained, and I needed it not to be.
Game night seemed like a good start. And Bardoul?
I’d do anything to fix the situation with him.I also invited Penelope and Grey, Riley, Gio, Lila, and Asher, basically anyone and everyone I thought might say yes.
Bardoul, full on, said no. There was no thinking about it.
He wasn’t even facing me when he declined, having already turned around and was walking the other way.
It hurt. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, but something about the entire situation felt off.
It wasn’t like he was just mad at me or disappointed.
It was more like something else was at play, and I didn't know what.
I wasn't going to push. Just getting close enough to ask him to game night seemed like a feat in itself.
Making things worse might make the entire relationship unsalvageable.
In the end, Jack, Penelope, Grey, and Asher were the only ones who came. But that was okay, it was a start.
We started with Scrabble. I didn’t quite get how it ended up winning the vote. Maybe because everybody could get lost in their own tiles if things got weird or awkward? Thankfully that didn’t happen. Well, the awkward part didn’t happen. The weird very much did.
The words some of us played were hilarious.
We didn’t have the normal high-level vocabulary, so we could get all the high-points words.
No, we had all the slang and far more ways to describe bodily functions than I thought possible.
As each person laid down their tiles and called their points, we laughed harder and harder.
Maybe it was the nervous atmosphere that added to the funny, but I was going to take it because it felt almost normal.
“What should we play next?” I asked as I put the board on top of the pieces and closed the lid.
“We should draw for a game,” Jack said, ripping a piece of paper and writing down all the different names. It was less of a suggestion and more of a “we’re doing this,” and I appreciated it.
She had Phelan reach in and grab a paper from the mug with all the folded bits. He pulled out Candy Land, which somehow got into the rotation last year. It was the perfect silly game we needed.
We had it set up when there was a knock at the door. I drew the first card, expecting the person knocking to be one of the people who hadn’t declined but hadn’t shown up yet. I thought wrong. Two seconds later, Atticus was barging in.
“Is this what we’re doing now?”
“It’s game night, Atticus,” I said, slapping on a smile. “Would you like to play Candy Land with us?”
“Notice you have kids’ games out. Makes sense, given the, you know, situation.” He stared right at my belly.
“Dick,” Jack muttered. “You need to cut it out. You can be here if you want to be nice, but if not, you can leave.”
“Like I owe you anything.” And off he went. For someone who all but barged in here, he left after one pregnancy dig. Strange.
I couldn’t piece together why he showed up in the first place other than to be a fucking dick.
Just saying something mean to me didn’t make sense.
But ultimately, it didn’t matter what the reason was, because the end result was that three minutes later, the only people left in the room were Jack, Phelan, and me.
Gone was the merriment, the laughter, and the normalcy.
All I wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep so I could wake up to find out it was a dream and game night hadn’t even happened yet. But it had. No amount of sleeping would change that.
“Why is he always like that?” Jack asked.
“He...” I trailed off, starting to put away the Candy Land. “I don’t know.”
“He has issues,” Phelan said and left it at that. “But hey, I’m gonna go make some sandwiches.” He kissed the top of my head and walked out.
I wasn’t hungry. I doubted Jack was either. There was enough food already out for a million people, but that wasn’t what he was doing. He was giving us time, time to talk, just the two of us. He knew how the strain on the relationship with my former roomie was eating at me.
“There’s a lot that needs to be said,” Jack said gently.
I took her hand. “I promise you, I wasn’t leaving you in the dark.”
“I know, but you... you cut me off. I was so worried.”
“I’m sorry. But there are some things I want to tell you.” It was now or never.
“Such as?”
“Phelan thinks we’re having a pup.”
“You’re having a shifter baby?” Jack gasped.
“I think so.”
“Then why don’t you look happy about that?” Her response made sense if I was a latent or even a regular old human. But that was the thing, despite Phelan’s reassurances, I didn’t think I was either.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Jack. But I think... I think I might be a hunter.”
“No, that can’t be. You can’t be. You’d know.” She was looking at her lap, her eyes no longer on mine.
“And how would I know? Being good at archery? Cause I got that.”
“No, a single skill means you have a skill. What does Phelan say?”
“He says they’re not real.” And I wished I could believe him.
“Then maybe live with that as fact. Focus on that. Are you still having nightmares?”
“No, but I hear one voice.” She hadn't known about that, but keeping everything bottled inside wasn’t doing me any good. It still worried me, but it wasn’t the same.
“That’s probably your baby.”
“Babies don’t talk.” Not before birth, anyway, and for sure not with the vocabulary my head was feeding me though I did prefer thinking it was the baby’s voice. “But there was another voice but that’s been mostly silent lately.”
My friend scratched her head as if that was too much information. “Let’s focus on this hunter thing. Why does Phelan think they don’t exist?”
“He said they’re like the boogeyman.”
“That could be, but maybe they are real,” Jack whispered.
“Can we not...” Phelan put a plate of sandwiches on the table.
“Can we not what? Talk about the facts?” Jack asked.
“Can we not pretend hunters are real?” Phelan snapped at her.
“But if they are real,” Jack argued, “he can’t stay here.” Her words were barely a whisper. “If they are real, you guys aren’t safe here.”
“One of my biggest fears...” I started.
“He’s your mate,” Jack said. “He’d be safe. And I’m latent, so I’m probably okay. If those are your biggest fears, put them aside.”
They were near the top, but I had so many fears right now, putting them in order would be impossible.
“Let’s go by the premise that they’re real.” Phelan grabbed a sandwich and handed it to me. “Eat. You’re growing our pup.”
I took a bite, not wanting to argue. Tonight was stressful enough without a fight.
“If hunters exist,” he continued, “the hunters of this generation are gone based on the stories we’ve heard. Which means you’re not one of them.”
The truth was, whether I was a hunter or human, I didn’t really know.
What mattered was that neither of those things belonged at Sombertooth.
But where else were we going to go? We’d been looking for other schools, but even if we found one, we were probably going to be here until at least Christmas, maybe a full year.
“And if I’m a hunter, I don’t belong here or anywhere we’ve looked at.”
“Wait, you’re looking at other schools?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. It’s not as easy as it was for me to come here. The application flyer was just in my mailbox waiting for me.”
I’d forgotten about that, and I didn’t think of it as a big deal until Phelan’s jaw dropped. “Sombertooth doesn’t send flyers. There’s a long waitlist. They don’t need them. Plus, they don’t want their information getting out to the human realm by accident.”
“Well, then what does it mean that I got one?”
“I don’t know,” Phelan said slowly. “But it sounds like you were selected for Sombertooth, and not the other way around.”
Fuck.